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Tuesday, 31 January 2012

This morning I placed the final small stone into my river. I
did it! I completed the River of Stones January 2012 Writing Challenge. Some
days I had to root round for an idea for my small stone while other days a
small stone appeared on my computer screen without hardly a thought.

My final ten stones are listed out at the bottom of this post
and, as with my earlier posts, I’ve selected two that hold a special meaning for
me. This time the selection was easy and it’s no surprise that it’s all about
family.

Odd to begin with a failed stone but interesting that
the more emotionally involved I was to the stone, the harder it was to find the
words to express exactly what I felt.

A failed small stone. I can’t find words to describe the
aching tiredness in my body after an exhausting weekend with my post-operative
daughter.

Just over a week ago my daughter had an op as a day patient
at her local hospital. She was still very much under the influence of the
anaesthetic for several days afterwards and needed a lot of t.l.c. She was hoping
to bounce up and be back at work by now but, as with many things, it’s not been
as straight-forward as we expected, although but hopefully she’s now on the mend.

My other special stone is no surprise.

A first. My little grandson said, “Here yar Mamma” and gave
his dummy to the phone. He called me Mamma and it melted my heart.

He’s only 22 months old and I thought for a start he was talking
about his Mum but he then said, “Mummee car.” So I’m Mamma. That’s so cute
except that after I’d been talking to his Dad for a while he shouted “Bye bye
Mamma” and waved at the phone.

Diabetes update: I mentioned in an earlier post that my
grandson had been diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes a few months ago. It was a
great shock to all of us, not least because he’s so young, but now things are settling
into a routine and, although his levels are still up and down, he’s coping really
well with his new regime, including his four injections a day!

Some of my blogger friends have been asking how Mr A's health is these days. Thank you for asking. He
has fully recovered from the stem cell transplant and the levels in his blood are,
thankfully, stable right now. We're keeping everything crossed.

My final ten small stones:

22.1.12 A failed small
stone. I can’t find words to describe the aching tiredness in my body after an
exhausting weekend with my post-operative daughter.

23.1.12 The dunnock
knocks leaves from the gutter seeking out insects that had mistakenly preserved
their juicy bodies for his breakfast.

24.1.12 Raindrops hit the puddles sending circles ever
outwards, moving too fast for me to see, but I can hear them on the
conservatory roof.

25.1.12 T-shirts with bows, sequins, ribbons or
stripes.Trousers straight or boot leg, on waist or hips. So many choices and
now I’ve spent too much!

26.1.12 The frozen lump of beige soup softens in the pan. I
take a taste, still can’t identify quite what I put in it but it’s surprisingly
tasty.

Friday, 27 January 2012

Every morning we listen to BBC Radio 4’s Today programme. This morning I heard them mention the Hadron Collider and
suddenly realised that they were talking about the beginning of the Universe. I
ran and turned off the radio. This is one issue that I just can’t get my head round. But it was too late because now I’m revisiting
questions that are always lurking in that dark part of my mind:

If there was a beginning of the Universe then what was here
before?

If we could travel and travel then would we reach the edge
of the Universe?

If there’s an edge to the Universe then what’s outside it?

If the Universe was to be destroyed then what would take its
place and how could there ever be nothing?

I do have faith in the beliefs of my religion but I still
can’t work out all this Universe business. Is it any wonder that I throw myself
into my writing? It stops me from thinking about these brain-exploding
issues.

Is it just me or do other people have trouble thinking about this
sort of thing?

Sunday, 22 January 2012

Collecting small stones is all about looking carefully at one
thing each day for the whole of January and writing down what I see. It’s a
fascinating activity. I’ve never done it before and I didn’t expect to get this
far. I’m well over half way and think that I might just make it to the end of
the month.

I’ve chosen two number-related stones to talk about and listed out my others
at the bottom of this post. [I posted about my first
nine small stones here.]

Why does Soduko fascinate me so much? In theory it’s
completely pointless. It makes no difference if I fill it in correctly or not,
but in practise I’m quite passionate about it, almost as passionate as I am
about Bridge.

Bridge also relies on working out numbers, counting the high
card values in your hand, making a calculated estimate of how many points your
partner has according to the bids of your opponent. I’m not sure if I do it to
keep my brain active, or to keep me from thinking about life’s worries. Probably
both if I’m honest.

Do you have a hobby that you’re passionate about?

My small stones from 10th to 21st
January:10th It has
a rich red base with black lines forming diamonds, circles, elaborate shapes,
each one filled with blue, beige and red. This is the Turkish rug that I never
see beneath my feet.

12th I
slice the cucumber so thinly the light shines through. My knife slips. I should
hide the half slices but where? In my mouth!13th The
car wash guys have raw red hands and yet they chat and laugh as they wring out
leathers, spray on soap, hose down suds.

14thA thousand tiny fireflies have been skating all night on our
frosted car roof to the tune of The Bolero. I know because I can see the lines their
skates have left behind.

15th A line
of steam escapes from beneath the saucepan lid and gathers like dewdrops on the
cold kitchen window.

16th Yellow
tulips dip over the rim of my vase like ballerinas bowing for applause.

Tuesday, 17 January 2012

Why is it that the computer has a way of making itself
appear incredibly difficult until you know how? I’ve had friends who, not so
long ago, were bewildered about how to use an email account but now they’re
emailing as if it’s the easiest thing in the world, which of course it is… when
you know how. Some of my friends are now wary of launching themselves into the
blogging world because they’re not sure they know how. One of those friends has
successfully dived in and you can find her at Thinking of the Days talking
about everything from music to her allotment, cooking, family, life, the lot.
Hopefully the others won’t be far behind because it really is easy once you
know how.

Some time ago I set up a website because I wanted to connect
with other writers but yet again it’s all about what you know and I now know
that blogging and tweeting are the best ways to network, raise your profile as
a writer and make lovely friends while you’re at it. So when the bill for next
year’s website hosting arrived in my inbox I decided it was time for a
restructure. Within the month my website will cease to exist. I’m transferring
some of the content onto this blog. You’ve probably noticed that tabs have
appeared above the title of this post. Of course, you won’t have noticed how
many hours it took me to work out how to set up those tabs and additional blog
pages and yet it’s simple now I know how.

Talking of lovely blogging friends, I’ve received some
awards. Annalisa Crawford from Wake up, eat, write, sleep gave me the One Lovely
Blog Award over a month ago. Apologies for the delay, Annalisa, but life’s been
a bit hectic here.

Annalisa is a writer and fitness instructor and a lovely
chatty blogger so please go and visit her blog. I promise you won’t be
disappointed.

My other award is from Ruth who blogs at Out on a Limb. I
met Ruth through Rachel’s Platform Building Campaign. She writes YA and she’s a
chocolate lover, a blogger after my own heart, so all you YA writing, chocolate
loving bloggers please go and visit her blog. It’s a must read.

Ruth has given
me the Versatile Blogger Award and said that the rules insist I tell you seven
things about me that you didn’t already know. Gosh! I doubt that there are
seven things you don’t know about me so, as usual, I’m going to bend the rules
and tell you about five firsts.

My first LP record was by Dionne Warwick
My first car was a turquoise Austin A40 Farina
My first holiday abroad was in Benidorm in the days before
it was a TV series.
My first teaching post was as a History Teacher in
Loughborough
My first published piece of writing was a short story called
Waiting to be Rescued published in Best Women’s Magazine and if you’d like to
click on the above tab marked short story you can read it.

I’m passing this award to my friend Maria at First Draft Café
who, as@MariaAsmith, has done so much work to set up the #UKwriters group on
Twitter.

Friday, 13 January 2012

For several years I taught adult literacy and yet I still can’t
truly imagine what it would be like to not be able to understand the written
word. The nearest I’ve come to experiencing it is when I’m in a foreign country
and even then I can have a go at deciphering words, especially if they use the
same alphabet as us, because I have the decoding skills.

But without those decoding skills I’d be lost... literally
when it comes to travelling. Which is the correct bus stop? Which underground
train do I want? What street am I walking down? Where is the nearest public
toilet? How can I order food in a cafe or restaurant? The list of obstacles is
endless.

We were once in France and went into a Moule Restaurant. I
now know what Moule means and I’ve also learnt to say “Mon mari est mal avec
des moules.” He’s allergic to muscles so I hope that translated correctly. They
seemed to understand because they showed us the door.

Which brings me to the kitchen. What’s in that packet? Does it contain wheat? Is it still in date? Are the little pictures clear enough to show me how to cook it? And how would I remember what I need to buy
from the shops? I could dictate a shopping list onto my mobile but how do I do that? It’s hard enough to work out how to use all those obscure
facilities on mobile phones even with the ability to read the screen! And listening
to a shopping list is really not the same as scanning my eyes across a piece of
paper.

I could go on but I think you’re getting the gist by now, so
I’d like to say a big thank you to my teachers for teaching me to read and to
my Mum for instilling in me a love of reading. Books meant everything to Mum, especially as
she got older. They helped her to escape from a world of illness and immobility. Once she entered the pages of a book she could be anyone and go anywhere. Everyone reading this now can do that too.
Aren’t we lucky!

Monday, 9 January 2012

I had an amusing realisation last night as I watched Country
File on the TV. Me and David Hockney have something in common. Hockney spoke
about the way that people don’t really look at things. As an artist he takes in every fine detail of the world around him and transfers it onto canvas. I'm trying to look at the world around me for the January small
stones project and I'm transferring it to the computer screen, which brings me to another similarity. Hockney is into modern technology too. He uses an iPad which he says does the job far better than
the old fashioned sketch pad and pencil.

But now we come to the differences. Apart from the obvious fact that he's amazingly talented and world famous, he sees colour where I see
black. He sees fine blades of grass where I see a patch of green. I’ve a way to
go before I’ve grasped this small stones activity but I’ve stuck with
it. I’ve been tweeting them out each day this month and one or two have even been
retweeted by kind followers J

Thanks to Fiona and Kaspa for running this project at Writing our Way Home. I’ve listed out below my first 9 of 31 stones [it's only for the month of January] and I’ve chosen
two of my favourites to talk about.

I'm not sure if this is, strictly speaking, a small stone but it was such a precious
moment that it had to be included. My little grandson has been seriously ill.
In December he was rushed into hospital and spent five days in the High
Dependency Unit, what we used to call Intensive Care. The doctors diagnosed Type 1 Diabetes. He now has
to have four injections a day. For a start it was traumatic for him, and for his Mum, Dad and sister, but
the jabs are now called ‘tickles’ and he’s accepting them as part of his life. He’s
grinning and playing and running around again and, with much thanks to the
Doctors, we have our lively little grandson back... but sometimes life seems so
unfair.

A furry grey paw, chenille-soft,
stretches across my lap. I stroke it. Mabel purrs and, if I could, I would purr
too.

When Mabel arrived from the cat rescue
centre last March she was traumatised and spent all her time hiding under the table.
Her sister, Charlie, was traumatised too but she's more trusting. She’ll sit on
anyone’s lap and insists on being stroked the whole time [like now while I'm trying to type this!] Mabel is more
suspicious. She has not yet sat on a lap but she’s gradually moving closer.
She now sits either next to me on the settee or on the back of the settee by my
head and every now and again a cart-horse sized paw [she’s a big girl!] reaches
out and she lets me hold it and stroke it while she purrs contentedly.

My First Nine Small Stones

1st Jan Bamboo canes,
sturdy and black against delicate lime leaves, move to the rhythm of the wind
like arms at a rock concert.

2nd Jan The smear across
the microwave door, a rainbow drained of colour.

3rd Jan A hazy potato print
against a marine blue sky. The moon has insomnia again.

4th Jan With eyes closed
the wind in the trees becomes waves on a shingle beach.

5th Jan A sparrow wipes his
beak on the branch once, twice, fluffs out his sodden wings, nibbles a feather
and he's away

9th Jan With Hockney's words in my head I looked at small stones. They are grey, white, yellow, blue, black, orange and green. They are shiny, rough, flat, oval and round and everything in-between.

A small postscript for those who are interested: JOur local newspaper, The Leicester Mercury, rang me up last
Friday and interviewed me about my opinion of David Cameron’s statement regarding his
intentions to see improvements in hospital care. This is the resulting article here: Plans to improve nursing

Friday, 6 January 2012

I often go on nostalgia trips in these posts, remembering
the ‘good old days’, but this one’s different. I was out with a knitting-loving
friend and we popped into the wool shop. I prepared to glaze over but...

Wool has been born again. There were balls containing
sequins, balls made of ‘rag rug’ pieces, balls of thick flat yarn that fanned
out to create lace scallops. Using needles that resemble frankfurter sausages, a
scarf can appear in a single evening. How different from Mum’s fine needles and
even finer wool, click clack click clack. Every few months a garment would
emerge and next day there’d be different coloured wool and, click clack click
clack, she’d be off again.

Life today is all about quick and easy, like the microwave.
You can make a delicious steamed pudding in three minutes, no spluttering
saucepan with string and cloth covered basin rattling around for hours. Grandma
would never have believed it.

And then there’s the computer. Can you remember when you had
to type out a manuscript or document with carbon paper for your copy? If you
made a mistake near the end of the page you had to type it all over again and it’s
not that long ago!

Those who know me well will be amused to hear that I was seduced
by that wool shop. I’m knitting a chenille scarf, one of those ‘knit up in an
evening’ ones. I’ve been on it for three days now. I’ll let you know if it’s
ever completed!

For those who would like to buy some of this amazing wool, the shop is called Craft Corner Knits. It's at Thoresby Courtyard. Here is the link to their Facebook Page. and this is the link to Thorseby Courtyard.

Sunday, 1 January 2012

When I was in my twenties I tried very hard to drink wine
but it always made me sick which was a shame because it’s such a sociable thing
to do. When I met Mr A he declared that it was because I’d only ever tried
cheap plonk. Being a bit of a wine connoisseur (a posh way of saying he liked an
occasional glass) he lavished upon me the most expensive of wines. Still I was
sick. So I’m making an admission to you all now. I’m standing up as I type this
and I’m saying loudly and seriously,

“My name is Rosalind Adam and I am a
teetotaler.”

There I’ve said it. I can hear you all gasping and yes it does
mean that:

I’m always the designated driver home.

I never ‘get’ the jokes that are bandied about in the latter
part of a sociable evening.

And there are only so many glasses of juice that any one person can drink in an evening.

But:

I never get a thick head the morning after.

And Mr A hardly drinks at all now which is just as well in
view of his kidney problems following his stem cell transplant. Had I been fond
of a glass or two we could well be downing a bottle a night by now.

Last night, surrounded by my friends, I toasted the New Year
with a glass of lemonade while they sipped at Champagne. We had a lovely
evening and I drove home afterwards. Today I shared a delicious lunch with
friends and washed it down with their infamous and highly non-alcoholic ‘red
juice’. We had a lovely day and I drove home afterwards.

I don’t need alcohol to have a good time and I’m now raising
a cup of tea in a toast to the New Year. May the rest of it be every bit as
good as the first 24 hours have been.

Rosalind Adam

I am a writer, committed worrier and nostalgia obsessive with a fascination for all things historical. I am enjoying my second year of an MA in Creative Writing at Leicester University and don't know how I'll manage without it. Please scroll down to see my books...

The Children's Book of Richard III

This is my latest book, illustrated by Alice Povey. Click on the picture to buy a copy or go to Amazon.

Children's History of Leicester

A Children's History of Leicester published by Hometown World Publishers, 2011

Bathtime Rap

Bathtime Rap is a fun children's picture book published by Franklin Watts, 2008.

Building a Community

A history of the Leicester Progressive Jewish Congregation

Heritage Funded Projects

I was lead facilitator on the following two Heritage Lottery funded projects:

Leicester Jewish Voices

In 2009 I coordinated a memories project looking at the Leicester Jewish Community during the 1950s and 60s. You can see the website by clicking on the picture.

Local Cemetery Project

I coordinated the cataloguing of the Jewish section of Leicester Gilroes to provide a genealogical search facility. Subsequent research of a number of the headstones enabled us to record 'The Lives Behind the Stones'. 2014/15